


Heart's Desire Beach

by FriendvilleFan



Category: American Girl Dolls - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28761489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendvilleFan/pseuds/FriendvilleFan
Summary: While on a road trip to California, Felicity Merriman discovers that her friend Benjamin Davidson is her heart's desire.
Relationships: Ben Davidson/Felicity Merriman
Kudos: 2





	Heart's Desire Beach

California  
Summer Road Trip 2019  
“THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THE SUNSHINE BABY, I’M SEEING YOU IN A WHOLE NEW LIGHT------”  
Patricia the Park Ranger clamped her hands over her ears. “Could you please stop that awful racket?!”  
“Nope, I’m singing.” Felicity sucked in a big breath of air and belted out, “OUT OF THIS WORLD FOR THE FIRST TIME, BABY, OH, IT’S ALRIGHT, THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THE-----”  
“SHUT UP!” Patricia screamed.  
Felicity turned off the radio. “Well, you don’t have to be mean about it.”  
“Me, be mean?” Patricia was aghast and near tears when she said, “You’re the one who ripped me away from my life and my work and for what? Just to torment me with bad pop music in a confined car ride?”  
Felicity ignored her. “California here we come! Oh, I can’t wait. Finally, the ocean! And the greatest beach day ever! Everyone says it’s like the promised land, ya know, only better.”  
“It’s overrated,” said Patricia who had actually grown up in California before becoming a Park Ranger at Crater Lake.   
“Land of eternal sunshine here we come!” Felicity tied her saucer hat to her head with a big flourish. “Crystal blue waves, palm trees, warm sand, and best of all cute lifeguards! This is bound to be way better than any of the other places we’ve seen so far.”   
“More like land of eternal fog,” Patricia muttered. “You do know that we’re going to be north of San Francisco, right? And that it’s going to be cold and foggy and probably raining?”  
Felicity, being the New Englander that she was, waved Patricia’s worries away. “Probably warmer than it is at home right now. THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THE SUNSHINE BABY-------”  
But as they drove through the California countryside, Felicity couldn’t help but be disappointed. The landscape at home was luciously green, but here everything except what was deliberately watered by farmers was ugly and dead. As they passed tons of California vineyards, Felicity couldn’t help but compare it to the vineyards of Italy. Italy was way more beautiful than this. Then her thoughts turned to Smith. It was too bad it hadn’t worked out between them. Felicity often thought back fondly on her memories of dating Smith, riding bareback through the Italian countryside, being a famous Spotlight Dancer, and blowing up evil corrupt governments with her gang Glogan and Elizabeth. Felicity sighed for it seemed that those good old days were gone. Some things weren’t meant to be apparently. And Smith was too wimpy and whiny to be a real man anyway. She was honestly glad that she wasn’t going to be tied to that load of pathetic forever. Emily could have him. But still, she missed those good old days. It wasn’t really Smith that she missed anyway. She just missed having a boyfriend, someone to fawn over her and give her constant attention, someone to blow up governments with, someone who would kiss her into oblivion and make her forget everything but his strong arms.   
More than anything else in the world, Felicity longed for a boyfriend again. She wanted someone who would ride through Death Valley with her or do whatever crazy thing she felt like doing in the moment. True, she had Elizabeth for that but she couldn’t have wild passion with her. Dating should be easy given the amount of guys she had met over the years, but Felicity couldn’t be satisfied with or settle with any of them (mostly because the dude wanted nothing to do with her craziness and pleaded the friendship but only if I’m forced to see you card). Felicity was the self proclaimed love master of the family, but it irked her that she still couldn’t get a date for herself.   
It had been four long years since Reginald had dumped her. The rejection still hurt when she thought about it so more often than not she chose not to think about it. Besides, she never could have ended up with him anyway because he was British. Even though the revolution was long over with from a history standpoint, the war against Britain still waged in her mind mainly because of her life back in time and the fact that her friend Ben might still be fighting in the Revolutionary War. Wait a minute, maybe he wasn’t still back there? Didn’t she repeatedly keep bringing him to the future against his will? Felicity frowned in concentration as she thought deeply, something she seldom ever did. Long car rides with nothing to do but think forced her to remember and confront things that she normally didn’t like to think about. Felicity’s heart thudded in desire as memories of her friend Ben came floating to the forefront of her mind.   
Back in 2015 when Felicity was having a nasty bout of homesickness (although now come to think about it it wasn’t the 1770s that she missed, it was only Ben) she cloned herself and left her clone back in time so that she could live a double life and not miss anything. However, her clone had some glitches because she wanted it to be like her mini so that she could turn herself into it anytime she wanted and see what was going on with Ben and the rest of the family at colonial Williamsburg. Felicity’s science experiment literally blew up in her face. Ben happened to witness the explosion and in a moment of sheer panic she brought him to the future where he was at first shocked and horrified by everything he saw. Selfishly, she brought him here because she missed him, she was afraid that he would die in war without her, she wanted to do something crazy that her family and the government would not approve of, and she was still reeling from Reginald’s painful break up and wanted a dude whom she knew would never reject her like brainwashed Smith, Reggie, P.O.G. and Charles.   
Felicity didn’t really remember when or what exactly happened with Ben. There were moments where he appeared and disappeared. There were times when she dragged him to the future against his will, there were times when he left because he was mad at her, there were so many convoluted moments that she couldn’t keep track. At some point he went back in time to fight in the war. Felicity had written to him for a while, but then she gave up either because she hated writing or because she brought him here again. At some point they went back in time together and fought in all the American Wars just because they could.   
At some point they had together starred in Bitty’s musical Princess and the Pauper. If Felicity closed her eyes, she could still hear Ben’s strong voice singing over her, “I’ll be yours, together we shall always be as one, if you love me for me.” Every time she heard that blasted song, she always thought of Ben and wished that he would be hers. But Ben had made it very clear that though they were good friends, they would never be more than friends. The musical called for a kiss, but Ben could only bring himself to kiss her cheek. That was a very nice moment for them, but not quite nice enough and it still haunted her to this very day.   
Then last year Ben had appeared in her life again. She knew that he was at the ball in Argentina with Glogan and L.O.L. and Percy, but that’s all that she could remember. She was sure he did a lot more than just that but for the life of her she couldn’t remember what. He was supposedly living in an apartment somewhere nearby, but Felicity never saw him. They had hung out a few times, but then she again gave up. He was her friend, and although she loved him more than a friend, she was not going to be the one to make the first move. She didn’t want to ruin their friendship if he really didn’t see her that way. Ben mattered too much to her to blow it by doing something rash and crazy. Bringing him to the future illegally wasn’t crazy, but saying I love you was. Felicity wasn’t sure where or what Ben was up to these days. If he didn’t want to see her then fine she didn’t want to see him either. But that didn’t stop her from missing him or wondering about him or occasionally going to get him so that they could hang out. She thought he had some sort of secret job somewhere, but she didn’t really pay enough attention to what he said to remember. “Oh Ben,” Felicity whispered. “What happened to us?”  
“You say something?” asked Patricia looking up from her National Geographic magazine.   
Felicity shook her head. “No, you must be hearing things.”   
Patricia shrugged and was going to go back to reading when the car suddenly lurched to a stop at Point Reyes National Seashore.   
“Ooooo!” Felicity squealed in delight, all serious thoughts of Ben totally forgotten for the moment. “Beach time, baby!”  
But as Felicity jumped out of the car, she was deeply disappointed. The chilly wind blew her hat off, and there was so much fog that she couldn’t see the water which was supposedly a few feet in front of her. “WHAT?!” Felicity shrieked. “I might as well have stayed home!”   
“Told you so,” Patricia smirked.  
Felicity glared at her. Felicity glanced up at the disappointed look on Jessica’s face. I guess I’m not the only one who’s upset, Felicity thought. Felicity hated her adopted mothers Jessica and Jackie but being stuck in the car with them everyday made Felicity realize that they weren’t that bad after all. They were just boring and clueless, but not evil like the way Bitty, Gwen and Samantha, the ones who had actually lived in her house before the Playroom was built, made it sound like.   
Felicity ran around in the circle praying the fog would clear but of course it didn’t. Finally she collapsed in the sand and tried to think of something crazy that she could do. She came up with nothing and soon everyone piled back into the car and kept driving. Felicity sighed as she stared at the cows grazing on the cliff sides out the windows.   
“What? California isn’t as perfect as you thought it would be? Get over yourself, life is full of disappointments,” said Patricia, secretly glad that this trip wasn’t going as well as her captor wanted it to.   
“This is all your fault!”  
“My fault?!” Patricia echoed. “How------”  
“I don’t know how but it just is!” Felicity said.   
They continued to argue as the car drove on along the California coast heading for a new, less foggy destination.   
******************************************************************************  
Benjamin Davidson blinked in the bright sunshine as he stepped out of the black government van parked in the back of the parking lot at Heart’s Desire Beach. His face was set into a grim line. The time travel government was setting a trap for the Wanted Felicity Merriman. He was bait, and the sole agent responsible for arresting her. Felicity had outwitted teams of agents before and so they thought to surprise her with only one arresting officer, one that she trusted so deeply that she’d let him lead her to a certain location where the government would then step in and get her. Ben had worked hard to get them to trust him so completely with this mission, and it seemed that they finally did. Even with all of his erasing, deleting and covering up, the government was still determined to catch her. Felicity was one disaster away from being sent to Alcatraz. But Ben the bait couldn’t let that happen. The government was full of fools if they thought that he would ever turn in his best friend. Ben had a plan to make sure that never happened. All he needed was a little sample of her DNA and access to a clone machine. The government would never need to hunt for Felicity again, if they thought they already had her locked up forever.   
******************************************************************************  
This time when the car stopped Felicity and Patricia tumbled out into bright sunshine.   
“I think I liked the fog better,” Patricia muttered. Patricia reluctantly followed as Felicity started running toward the path to the beach.   
Felicity stopped short and stared up at a big brown sign that read Heart’s Desire Beach in golden yellow letters. Her eyes glowed in excitement. “It’s a literal sign that I’m going to fall in love here!”  
“Oh, brother,” Patricia rolled her eyes.   
Felicity continued staring up at the sign like a mad man. Who was her heart’s desire? She knew it wasn’t Smith or Charles or P.O.G. or Shirtless Dude or Mystery Man or anyone else. Would she find him here? Felicity was determined to not leave this beach until she found him. “Come on, let’s go find my true love.”  
“Oh no,” Patricia started backing away from her. Patricia had been days away from marrying her true love Patrick the Park Ranger before Felicity kidnapped her and ruined her life. “Absolutely not.”  
“You have to, you’re my sidekick today!”  
“No!”   
Suddenly a gruff man’s voice yelled out, “There she is! The girl who stole our gold!” A small army of ‘49ers with rough beards, 1800s suspenders and pickaxes suddenly appeared out of thin air.   
“Felicity, what did you do?” Patricia hissed as Felicity hopped up onto the big fence surrounding the sign.   
“What does it look like?” Felicity said absentmindedly as she stared out to sea dreamily thinking about anything but the angry ‘49ers in front of them. “Last night while you were asleep I time traveled and stole some gold from some burly miners during the gold rush, duh! It’s California, how could I not visit during gold rush times? Plus, I needed a souvenir for my pirating brother in law and how else was I supposed to get gold out here in the middle of nowhere?”   
“Get her!” yelled the team of 1800s pioneers as they came charging at Felicity and Patricia.   
“It wasn’t me!” Felicity yelled pushing Patricia forward with a big stick. “It was her!”   
“WHAT?!” Patricia shrieked. “No!”  
Felicity threw an extra time machine forward with all her might. Patricia and the angry mob of gold diggers suddenly disappeared.   
Felicity jumped down from the fence and shrugged. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”   
Just as Felicity was about to walk down the path to the beach, an old hunched back woman came up to her and said, “There’s more than just salt in the air at this beach.”  
“Like what? Toxic gas?”  
The old woman smiled. “No. Love. This beach has a certain magic about it, a way of showing you who your Heart’s Desire is. All you have to do is open your eyes and accept it. Go to the secret Cove of Desire and you’ll understand. Countless couples have found it here, me included.” The woman placed a heart shaped rock in Felicity’s palm and curled her fingers around it before taking the arm of a bald old man next to her. They hobbled down the beach and out of sight.   
Felicity ran after them, but she lost them in the crowd of beach goers. Felicity grinned and waved at the handsome, shirtless lifeguard who didn’t notice her. The heart shaped rock suddenly vibrated in Felicity’s hand. As Felicity held up the rock to the light, it changed from a shade of bluish gray to a bright pink and became more transparent. Felicity looked through it as if it were a spyglass and suddenly the life guard’s head was replaced with Ben’s. Startled, Felicity dropped the rock and the lifeguard’s head went back to normal. Felicity snatched up the rock and held it up again. When she looked through it, the head of every man on the beach was replaced with her friend Ben’s. “That is really weird,” Felicity said as she hurled the rock into the ocean. “It must be the toxic gas.”   
Felicity kicked off her stockings and shoes and ran alongside the water’s edge. The hem of her skirt quickly got soggy and heavy in the mucky lapping baby waves, but she didn’t care. She had to find that secret cove, and her heart’s desire.   
******************************************************************************  
Ben was chilling under a beach umbrella next to the lifeguard. People stared at his colonial clothes, but he didn’t care. His eyes were roving the crowd for one girl in particular. He had hidden a clone machine in a secluded cove further down the beach last night. Now all he had to do was clone Felicity and trick the government into thinking the clone was the real girl. Ben was beginning to lose hope that he’d ever spot her when suddenly she was there looking as pretty as ever in her turquoise and mustard yellow colonial gown, and to his jealous rage was staring flirtatiously up at the lifeguard. “Lissie!” Ben shouted and waved, but she was too busy inspecting a rock to notice him. Then she was running down the beach and Ben was racing after her.  
******************************************************************************  
Felicity paused to catch her breath on a sandbar where she heard loud music and people partying. Actually, they were not people. They were mermaids and they were snacking on psychedelic seaweed as they hopped around to the beat of heavy metal music. “Lenny?” Felicity asked and at the name of the King everyone bowed.   
“Wait a minute dudes,” said one merman, “The King ain’t here and if he were we’d be like totally toast man.”  
The other mermaids and mermen nodded in agreement. “Sorry,” said Felicity. “But my cousin Nellie dated him once and every time I see mermaids I can’t help but ask. What are you guys doing here?”  
“What does it look like dudette?” said the merman who looked like he was probably on drugs.   
“You’re throwing a party and had the nerve not to invite me?!”   
“No, we’re here to get dates,” said the hippie merman. “Why does anyone ever come to this beach anyway? There’s something in the weed, man, it makes you see things. Here, try some.”  
“Oooo! This tastes good,” said Felicity gobbling up a plate full of their psychedelic seaweed. Felicity may have thought that the weed would make her see things, but Glogan had gotten her so conditioned and so immune to poisons over the years that the merman’s seaweed wasn’t going to do anything except maybe give her a stomach ache later. “Do you know where the Cove of Desire is?”  
“Sure man,” said the merman. “It’s down that way and to the left. Just look for the cliff face with two tails inside a heart carved into the side of it.”  
“Thanks!” Felicity left the merpeople and continued galloping down the beach.   
******************************************************************************  
Ben saw Felicity talking to the sketchy mermaids, but by the time he caught up she was already gone again. “Where did that girl go?” He asked the nearest mermaid.   
“What’s it to you, buddy?”  
“I need her.”  
“Oooo! Maybe he’s her heart’s desire!”   
“They’re both certainly dressed funny,” another mermaid added.   
“Heart’s desire?” Ben echoed. “What?”   
“Heart’s Desire beach, she’s your heart’s desire. Geesh, get with it! What do you think this is? A platonic, elementary school boy girl party?”   
Felicity, his heart’s desire? Ben couldn’t allow that thought to consume him. “No,” Ben shook his head. Of course Ben loved Felicity with every ounce of his being, but he was too much of a coward to ever confess it. How many times had she told him that she would never settle, that she would never marry? He’d risk cannon fire in wars and he’d risk being eliminated by the government for her, but risk her rejection? That was something he could never do, not if he valued her as a friend. “We’re just friends----”  
“That’s what they all say!”   
Ben took off running after Felicity.   
“Yeah, you go chase after your heart’s desire!” The mermaids called after him mockingly. “Just friends, my tail!”  
******************************************************************************  
After a while, Felicity came to a cave on her left and sure enough there were two tails inside a heart carved onto the rock face. There was also a blinking colored sign that read: Cove of Desire. Felicity knelt in the sand and stroked her fingers over the letters. She took a deep breath and then said, “Okay, I’m ready to meet my heart’s desire.”   
Felicity stepped into the cave expecting to see a holographic man standing in there, but she was completely alone. “No, no, no!” Felicity banged her head against the cave walls. “I’m supposed to see him, I’m supposed to know!”  
She was startled to hear approaching footsteps reverberating on the barnacle covered rocks. She held her breath straining to see whose image her drug induced mind had conjured.   
“Ben!” Felicity, convinced that he wasn’t really there and that this was all just a big hallucination cooked up by the mermaid weed coursing through her body, threw herself at him in a hug. “You’re my heart’s desire?”  
“Um. . . .” said Ben awkwardly as she squeezed his guts out.   
“Oh, Ben. I should have known it was you all along.”  
“And why’s that?” Ben decided to play along long enough to secretly get a strand of hair off of her for his DNA sample because he didn’t want her asking questions about his job or she might ruin all his chances of helping her.   
Felicity looked at him as if he were stupid, which felt like he was. “Because.” Felicity turned away. This was hard to say even though this was just a drug induced dream. “Just because.” Then Felicity threw herself at his feet crying. “Oh, Ben! How could you not know? After all we’ve been through back in time and here in the future? I LOVE YOU! I always have and I always will, and there is nothing on this earth that could change that simple fact”   
“You do?” Ben could not explain the depth of relief coursing through him. Government mission totally forgotten, he folded himself around her and stroked her back. “Oh, Lissie, I thought, or rather I feared-----”  
“I know we’re just friends!” Felicity exploded. “But I want us to be so much more. Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you understand? I wish you would stop being so prim and proper and just kiss me already! What is it going to take, man?! Or are we really doomed to just being friends forever?”  
“Why haven’t you said anything before?” Ben really wasn’t handling this very well, but if she thought he was just a hallucination then he could work that to his advantage. He was terrible at romance which was why he was too much of a coward to scream I love you at him the way she just did.   
“Because you matter too much to me to blow it by acting crazy.” (As everything they had already done together wasn’t crazy enough) Felicity stood up and moved away from him. Even though she was certain that he was just a figment of her imagination, she suddenly couldn’t bear to look at him.   
“You should have acted crazy a long time ago,” Ben whispered. “I love you when you’re crazy, and I-----”  
“Oh Ben, you know how I said I would never ever get married someday no matter what?”  
“Yeah----”  
“Well, that’s a lie because I would if you and only you asked because I trust you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you no matter what messes we find ourselves in. I may try to find and cling to other boys, but inwardly I’m longing for you. Benjamin Davidson, you and you alone, are my heart’s desire, and someday I want to make you mine. In the deepest, darkest corner of my heart I know we belong together. Why else would I have dragged you here from 1774?”   
Ben staggered against the rock wall behind him. Lissie loved him? More than that, she loved him enough to give up her precious ideas of single woman freedom in order to marry him? Ben didn’t know how to react. Thankfully, he didn’t have to because Felicity kept talking. “You remember that musical we did with my family? That song we sang haunts me to this very day.” Then Felicity started humming, and then began singing, “In my heart I'd be glad, if you loved me for me. Could I be the one you're seeking? Will I be the one you choose? Can you tell my heart is speaking? My eyes will give you clues.” Apparently subtle clues were not enough because he still never got it.   
“I’d be sure, if I knew,” Ben whisper sung, still too shocked to move, “That you loved me for me.” Ben hadn’t ever been sure until this moment. “What you see may be deceiving.” Deceiving like a drug induced hallucination from some hippie mermaids in California. “Truth lies underneath the skin.”  
“Hope will blossom by believing,” Felicity added. Felicity had always secretly hoped that Ben was the one for her.   
Then they both stared into each other’s eyes as they sang together, “The heart that lies within.”  
Ben found his voice and sang louder, “I’ll be yours, together we shall always be as one. If you love me for me.” Felicity needed someone who would love her for her crazy self, and Ben knew that he was the man for that job.   
“Who can say where we’ll go?” Felicity asked. Or what time period.   
“I’ll be yours,” Ben promised.   
“Who can promise what will be?” With Felicity, there were no promises except the ones she had just made.   
“Together we shall always be as one.” Ben wanted that more than anything, but even now as she had confessed her love for him he was still too much of a coward to say the same.   
“But I'll stay by your side, if you love me for me. Oh, Ben, I will stay by your side if only-----”  
“Felicity are you in there?” Patricia’s voice echoed outside the cave. “I finally ditched those burly 1800s dudes, thanks a lot for that by the way, and some crazy old lady on the beach and some hippie smoking mermaids said to look for you here.”   
“Busy, Patricia! Come back later!” Felicity didn’t want this moment to end even though it wasn’t really Ben in here with her. She needed more time to wrestle with her subconscious so that she knew how to handle the real Ben.   
“No, we have to go now! The car is going to leave soon, Jackie and Jessica are in the changing booth.”  
Felicity nearly swore under her breath, but she reluctantly left the cave and stepped into the sunshine. Ben didn’t follow, which only enforced the idea in Felicity’s head that he was not actually there and merely a figment of some magic in a cave. Felicity gazed at the cave one last time, certain that someday she’d meet up with the real Ben and they’d end up together because the psychedelic mermaid hallucination said so. “Thank you Heart’s Desire Beach,” Felicity murmured. She pressed her face up against the glass as the car rolled away wishing that she could go back to that magic cave once more. “Thank you.”   
After Felicity left, Ben noticed something on the ground. Her bonnet! Perfect for making a clone. He held her bonnet close, inhaling her scent like a wild dog. “Oh Lissie, I love you too. And someday we shall always be as one, I promise you that.” Ben had one thing that he hadn’t had earlier that day, confidence that he could in fact marry Felicity someday. But for now, he had a clone to make, a government to trick, and eventually a girl to woo.


End file.
